Cincinnati Electronics Wins Navy Contract

L-3 Communications said its Cincinnati Electronics (L-3 CE) subsidiary will provide the U.S. Navy's Sea Fighter FSF-1 (Sea Fighter) with its Night Conqueror thermal imager. The Night Conqueror will be used in the Vistar 350 sensor suite operating as a navigational electro-optical (EO) system on the Sea Fighter, which can operate at speeds greater than 50 knots and has a range of approximately 4,000 nm. The Vistar 350 is a day/night surveillance system that allows enhanced visibility from a wide range of craft, either sea going or for inland waters. According to the Office of Naval Research, which developed SeaFighter with L-3 Titan as the ship's prime contractor, this high-speed aluminum catamaran will test a variety of technologies that will allow the U.S. Navy to operate more effectively in littoral waters. SeaFighter, previously known as Littoral Surface Craft Experimental or "X-Craft," will be used to evaluate the hydrodynamic performance, structural behavior, mission flexibility and propulsion system efficiency of high-speed vessels. Sea Fighter will also serve as a test bed for developmental mission packages and as a risk reduction experimental vessel for the Littoral Combat Ship and Deepwater Program concepts of operation development at sea. The ship is 262 feet in length and displaces 1400 tons (at full load), with a beam of 72 feet and a navigational draft of 11.5 feet. L-3 CE's Nigh tConqueror high-performance imager has been selected as the imager of choice for new systems and as an upgrade to many existing legacy programs for the U.S. military.